Apple Almost Acquired 'Halo' Developer Bungie in 2000

[alent1234]

In retrospect, Halo's success seems like an accidental byproduct of Microsoft's intent to deprive the Mac platform of a triple-A developer. The MacWorld Halo demo was impressive but out of all the PC developers why would Bungie be the sure thing?

the x-box was the first console with online play. x-box live debuted a year after the original console came out. for online you need a good FPS. at the time Sony and Nintendo had a lot of good devs locked up in exclusive contracts and MS needed a good game for it's new console. buying Bungie gave MS a good exclusive multi-player FPS

the x-box OS is related to Windows like iOS is related to OS X. Bungie was already making Windows games so the costs to port to x-box would be minimal

and profit. one reason why nintendo has been ridiculously profitable until recently was that it produced most of the big hits for it's own console

 

[opeter]

Hardly....MS didn't acquire Bungie to take away the mac segment. They bought them as a fantastic game development team to create games for their new games console. Apple/Mac never would have come into the equation.

The whole purpose of the acquisition was to build a best seller, period.

Remember the mac was PowerPC, as was the Xbox - hence using a developer who has worked on the architecture would be a great benefit.

The first Xbox used an 733 MHz Intel Pentium III/Celeron class CPU.
Xbox 360 is the first mass produced console from Microsoft, that has a three-core PowerPC CPU.

Also, most modern consoles (Xbox 360, PS3, nintendo Wii ...) use the PPC CPU technology.

 

[Sol]

Hardly....MS didn't acquire Bungie to take away the mac segment. They bought them as a fantastic game development team to create games for their new games console. Apple/Mac never would have come into the equation.

The whole purpose of the acquisition was to build a best seller, period.

Remember the mac was PowerPC, as was the Xbox - hence using a developer who has worked on the architecture would be a great benefit.

The first XBox used an x86 type processor so that could not have been a reason Microsoft would want Bungie instead of anyone else with a proven track-record like iD or Epic.

 

[Fanboyofnothing]

Halo on a PC/Mac is just a sub-standard FPS. It's great on a console, though.

 

[ArcaneDevice]

Video games, the Achille's Heel of Steve Jobs.

He's never got them (yes, even now) primarily because I think he was born without the "fun" gene.

 

[PlayUltimate]

At the time Halo was bought, Sony's PlayStation owned the game console market. MSFT wanted to enter that market but needed an exclusive franchise game that would motivate gamers to buy an XBox; Halo was that game. Bungie prior to acquisition was developing Halo for a simultaneous Mac/PC game release. Those in the Mac world, who had seen previews of Halo, were ecstatic about the gaming possibilities. MSFT killing of the Mac version of Halo put a serious dent in Mac gaming for quite some time. But without Halo, I'm not sure if the XBox would have ever succeeded.

However, as others have stated, I'm not sure what Apple would have done if they had bought Bungie. Further, I believe that the success Apple has seen, starting with the iPod, may have eluded them since they would have likely developed in a different direction. Remember the iPod came out in 2001, 2 years after Bungie was bought by MSFT. If Apple had purchased Bungie and decided to pursue game console development, we may have never seen the iPod nor seen the resurgence of Apple Inc.

 

[urbanlung]

All's swell that ends well

I must admit, I was mighty pissed when MS got Bungie and have have to say the Halo that MS ended up with was a pale shadow of what the Macworld demo promised. I do suspect however that, at least in cash terms Bungie probably did better with MS. I suspect also that we all did. Halo ended up a crumby game on all platforms and particularly on the Xbox but plenty of people liked it sufficiently to give Sony a run for their money. That they had competition, even from MS was a good thing and I doubt very much that Apple would have as much. Short term we lost but long term I think we won.

 

[Speedy Dingo]

Bungie made the right choice imo. Otherwise they'd be making niche games for a niche market on Apple's hardware. They would never have gotten as big as they are now.
And I have a feeling Steve would've made Bungie work on iOS by now...

 

[PlipPlop]

I must admit, I was mighty pissed when MS got Bungie and have have to say the Halo that MS ended up with was a pale shadow of what the Macworld demo promised. I do suspect however that, at least in cash terms Bungie probably did better with MS. I suspect also that we all did. Halo ended up a crumby game on all platforms and particularly on the Xbox but plenty of people liked it sufficiently to give Sony a run for their money. That they had competition, even from MS was a good thing and I doubt very much that Apple would have as much. Short term we lost but long term I think we won.

Reception
Aggregate scores
Aggregator Score
GameRankings Xbox: 96% (based on 90 reviews)


Metacritic Xbox: 97% (based on 68 reviews)


Review scores
Publication Score
Edge 10/10
Electronic Gaming Monthly 10/10
Platinum Award,
Game of the Year
Famitsu 32/40
Game Informer 9.5/10[81]
GameSpot 9.7/10.[21]
Editor's Choice
GameSpy 85/100[11]
IGN 9.7/10[19]
Editor's Choice,
Game of the Year 2001
Awards
2002 Game Developers Choice Awards: Excellence in Audio
5th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards: Console and Overall Game of the Year,
Console Action / Adventure, Visual Engineering
2000 Game Critics Awards: Best Action Game

Your wrong.

 

[phobic99]

the x-box was the first console with online play. x-box live debuted a year after the original console came out.

False.

That would be the Sega Dreamcast which was released 3 years before the first Xbox.

 

[PlipPlop]

False.

That would be the Sega Dreamcast which was released 3 years before the first Xbox.

DC online was terrible It was awesome Microsoft only allowed people with Broadband on XBL. Slow dialup was one of the main problems of DC

 

[till]

I must admit, I was mighty pissed when MS got Bungie and have have to say the Halo that MS ended up with was a pale shadow of what the Macworld demo promised.

Yeah. I think I still have a PC games magazine with a preview of Halo describing an open world where you would travel around and figure out how to achieve objectives like attacking a base however you wanted to. It sounded awesome. Like Deus Ex, but bigger.

Now, Halo is synonymous with the bland, linear FPS genre. I'm sure they're very shiny and fun, but it could've been so much more.

 

[stuffradio]

Steve Jobs crying about the Microsoft Acquisition is like Ballmer crying about the iPhone's success.

 

[Antares]

It's funny. If Apple had bought Bungie instead of MS, the Xbox 360 would most likely not be around today. The original Xbox would have likely fizzled out. Halo was the sole reason the Xbox succeeded as much as it did. It's crazy to think about how different things could have been.

I was always bitter about MS buying Bungie. Halo was a Mac game that I was looking forward to since 1997....and I was quite upset when it was canceled. It eventually did release on the Mac. However, that was years after the Xbox release.

 

[Earendil]

Now, Halo is synonymous with the bland, linear FPS genre. I'm sure they're very shiny and fun, but it could've been so much more.

The irony of reading the average Halo basher on a Mac Forum is that the same arguments used against Halo, are the ones used against "Macs". What Makes the Halo series a good game is not how "Shiny" or pretty it is. It's about the experience. Halo 1 was rushed to market to meet the XBox launch, which was sad. Bungie had to cut a LOT to make that launch, but do you know what they didn't sacrifice? Game play experience. In fact the original Halo was accused of NOT being shiny.

I've played many Shiny games, but the majority of them usually leave me thinking at least once "WTF were the developers thinking?!". Bungie made not have pulled off the prettiest graphics, or the best story, but they've consistently created very balanced and "fun" games. Now fun is naturally a personal opinion, but the haters aren't usually ones that have ever finished a game.

Reminds me of Mac haters a lot

 

[phillipjfry]

I doubt Halo would be such a "household name" without the Microsoft acquisition. Microsoft was a huge beast back in the day. Always in the news over good and bad things.
It was the best acquisition for Bungie for the time. Now that Apple has become so massive compared to 2000-Apple, historian's fallacy would say it would have been in Bungie's best interest to have been acquired by Jobs.

I think this thread lacks fanboys who should call Steve a winner and criticize Halo as a really bad game.

It goes without saying...

 

[Earendil]

Face it...

If Apple acquired Bungie, Halo would have never been released because Steve wouldn't have thought it was good enough. Be happy that you have had a chance to play those Halo games.

GL

To the contrary, I think Bungie and Apple were cut from the same cloth. Neither cared much about Specs, they both care about balance and the user experience. Take the Music score in the Halo games. The music is everywhere, and is also one of the only games on the market today in which you can NOT turn it off. Why? Because Bungie decided it was part of the game, part of the experience, and they weren't going to let you rip it out because you thought you knew what was best. Sound familiar?

With many games it's obvious that the game studio piled all the resource chips into just a few areas (graphics, story, large environment) but completely left other areas of the game lacking even a modest amount of playability. Bungie has always produced well rounded games (sans Oni) which may not have any one "amazing" area, but usually doesn't have any particular place that is completely lacking. The only other game I've played that didn't leave me thinking "wtf was the developer thinking" was Starcraft. By all standards of the time, Starcraft was pretty "meh". However the experience of playing the game was solid, and good. I think many a games are released today with the expectation that Graphics = Experience, which just isn't true. I believe of any Company out there, Apple would have understood that.

That said, Microsoft did a lot better staying hands off than I ever thought they would! Obviously not well enough, since Bungie went independent again in 2007. Though it was seen and publicized as a mutual thing, I can't imagine Microsoft would just let them go unless perhaps they all threatened to quit

 

[DougB541]

Such is the business.

Hell, Microsoft had a great exclusive on their hand with Mass Effect but then EA scooped up Bioware and now Mass Effect 2 and 3 are coming to PS3.

I'm sure MS wished they bought them instead, but thats just how it goes some times.

 

[DougB541]

To the contrary, I think Bungie and Apple were cut from the same cloth. Neither cared much about Specs, they both care about balance and the user experience. Take the Music score in the Halo games. The music is everywhere, and is also one of the only games on the market today in which you can NOT turn it off. Why? Because Bungie decided it was part of the game, part of the experience, and they weren't going to let you rip it out because you thought you knew what was best. Sound familiar?

With many games it's obvious that the game studio piled all the resource chips into just a few areas (graphics, story, large environment) but completely left other areas of the game lacking even a modest amount of playability. Bungie has always produced well rounded games (sans Oni) which may not have any one "amazing" area, but usually doesn't have any particular place that is completely lacking. The only other game I've played that didn't leave me thinking "wtf was the developer thinking" was Starcraft. By all standards of the time, Starcraft was pretty "meh". However the experience of playing the game was solid, and good. I think many a games are released today with the expectation that Graphics = Experience, which just isn't true. I believe of any Company out there, Apple would have understood that.

That said, Microsoft did a lot better staying hands off than I ever thought they would! Obviously not well enough, since Bungie went independent again in 2007. Though it was seen and publicized as a mutual thing, I can't imagine Microsoft would just let them go unless perhaps they all threatened to quit

That was probably it. Microsoft obviously wants to keep the Halo universe alive, but Bungie clearly wanted to work on something new. We'll see how 343 Industry handles Halo...and we'll see what Bungie can do multiplatform.

 

[JGowan]

If Steve said "no" then he could be disappointed, but surely he expected someone else to get Bungie. I wish we knew the truth. This is like "the white iphones aren't here because of color mismatch... no ... now... light seeping out from the glass... no ... now it's light is seeping back in and taking lousy pictures. We really don't know and really don't know about this. If Steve Jobs really called Steve Ballmer up and bitched him out, it was probably because MS swooped in with a bigger offer while Apple was truly wooing Bungie.

With that said...

Ultimately, MS developed XBox platforms which have became legendary for Halo and video gaming in general. With Mac's limited piece of the tech pie (especially at that time), I just don't think Apple was the right place for Bungie. What happened feels right to me.

I have a new black Slim Xbox 360 and works great so far, although I know that the hardware has been plagued with problems since the beginning (Red Ring of Death, anyone?) I was very reluctant to get one, but I just didn't want to play in Sony's sandbox of hi-def games. So far, I've played several games since May* and am enjoying it very much.

* Assassin's Creed 1 and 2; Prince of Persia Forgotten Sands. Other games: Red Dead Redemption, Alan Wake, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3; Fable II

 

[skeep5]

i miss playing the original halo on the mac... sigh

 

[C. Alan]

I perhaps sound like a broken record, but I think Bungie did better with microsoft than they would have done with apple. We may have seen Halo one and possibly Halo 2 on the Mac, but I don't think 3, ODST, or Reach would have ever seen the light of day. For the record, I do have a 360 sitting above my TV right now, and that was mainly due to Halo.

 

[MCP-511]

Decade old news, must of been a slow news day. lol

 

[Minimoose 360]

Steve is a winner and Halo is a really bad game.

[The above is total nonsense - Bungie needed more resources than Apple could give at the time, and Halo is awesome enough that I have been tempted to buy an Xbox in addition to my PS3]

I was going to say, judging by your signature



You could say this would have been a "game changer", but you have a good point:

Where would Halo have gone with Apple? Nowhere.

 

[Time Clock]

False.

That would be the Sega Dreamcast which was released 3 years before the first Xbox.

That is also inaccurate. The Sega Genesis and the SNES had online play through Xband. I may be mistaken, but I believe that there may have been an even earlier console with some kind of netplay. You could even download games on the Genesis and SNES

Getting back to subject at hand, I think that had Halo been a Mac/PC exclusive title, it would have been more "hardcore" than it was. In my opinion, Halo ended up as the "shooter for the rest of us" because of Microsoft's desire to have a AAA game for the XBox launch.

Look at Marathon 2; it was released on both the Mac and the PC, and it failed to become the sales phenom that Halo was. Halo may have very well been that- a great game that only a few people ended up playing.